


Hold You Forever

by FoliumInAuras



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Professors, Swan-Mills Family (Once Upon a Time), University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26613049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoliumInAuras/pseuds/FoliumInAuras
Summary: Head of Storybrooke University's English Department, Professor Regina Mills, instils the fear of God into everyone, dubbed the Evil Queen before her first week teaching was over - and it had stuck, even a decade on. English Professor Emma Swan is goofy and funny and cool - everything Professor Mills is not.But things are never as they seem.(Spoiler: there is no slow-build here. It's really mostly Swanqueen domesticity from the get-go.)
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills & Emma Swan, Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 53
Kudos: 325





	Hold You Forever

**Author's Note:**

> This was a quick one-shot idea I had that turned into fourteen thousand words - Yikes!
> 
> Have at it, folks and thank you for reading.

A knock on the door interrupted Regina briefly but she continued to mark the student exams in front of her. She was given a few moments of reprieve before the knock came again and sighed; most people knew better than to disturb her outside of her office hours.

“Come in,” she answered, voice straining against the lump that had sat in her throat since that morning.

The door to her office slowly opened but she kept her eyes on her marking.

“Um— hey,” came a quiet voice.

Regina looked up to see a head of blonde hair peeking around the small crack in the door.

Then again, this woman wasn’t most people.

“Miss Swan,” Regina cocked her head, “how can I help?”

Emma waited for a moment, sizing Regina up, gauging what kind of mood she was in and just what she would be dealing with. She appeared calm; the storm that had been raging in her eyes all day seemed to have passed. When she was quite sure (because she could never be certain), she opened the door farther and stepped fully into the room.

“It’s half six on a Friday.”

A perfectly manicured eyebrow rose behind thick-rimmed glasses. “And your point, Miss Swan? Other than your mathematical knowledge being as basic as your linguistic skills are,” Regina snapped.

Emma sighed, tired and weary from the day. “It’s half six on a Friday,” she repeated. “There’s no one else here. Just the cleaners.”

“Then that’s not no one, is it?” Regina replied. She returned her attention to the student exams.

Emma watched the woman behind the desk, her spine rigid and her ankles crossed. She watched her lips move with the words and purse when something didn’t read right. She watched dark, silky waves fall from their position tucked behind an ear and her fingers itched to gently tuck them back.

Emma closed the door behind her, turning to lean against it, and continued to watch the other professor.

“You seem to be on the wrong side of the door, Miss Swan.” An observation made without brown eyes ever leaving the page.

“It’s half past six on a Friday,” Emma said once again.

Regina opened her mouth ready to lay out plainly before the apparently oblivious professor why exactly that same repeated sentence held no weight in that room, but when she looked up, she was met with green steely eyes and the rest of her words fell silent.

It was a staring match; a contest of wills as eyes narrowed and teeth ground against one another. Eventually Regina – Professor Regina Mills, who was competitive by nature (and always won), who had a well-thought out and sophisticated retort to everything, who terrified her first ever class of Freshmen so much that she had been dubbed the ‘ _Evil_ _Queen_ ’ before the first week was over (and it had stuck still over a decade on), and who was revered by her colleagues and students alike – blinked and gave in first. (Although she would never admit to it.)

“Emma,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair and removing her glasses from her nose.

Emma grinned. “See? Was that so hard?”

Regina replied by bringing her fingers up to massage between her eyes and Emma took the non-verbal defeat for what it was: the willing surrender of the participation in a war that never truly existed, merely there for aesthetics and ease, and flicked the lock on the door.

Regina’s eyes snapped up. “Someone could try to come in.” It was a feeble attempt at gaining even a semblance of the control they both knew Regina had relinquished.

“And who would do such a thing?” Emma asked, walking father into the room and standing behind one of the two chairs that faced Regina’s desk, hands resting on the back, watching as Regina began to fiddle with the ring around her finger, a nervous habit she had started not long after it was placed there.

“Anyone,” Regina replied. “Faculty, students.”

“At half past six on a Friday?”

“ _Yes_ , Miss Swan.”

Emma waited and soon Regina sighed again in resignation, but her fingers didn’t cease in their fidgeting with her ring.

“How about I just sit here?” Emma asked, sliding around and into the chair. “Nothing looks amiss, right?”

“Except you’re in my office and the door is locked.”

“I’ve been in your office before.”

“Not with the door locked.”

“Well, no one’s going to know; everyone’s gone home. Speaking of…” Emma trailed off, but Regina didn’t bite. Emma sighed, watching as Regina bit at the skin around her finger nails. “Regina.”

Regina’s eyes flicked from Emma to the door and back again. “Someone could come in.”

“Like who?”

“The cleaners?”

“What time do they usually come in to clean your office?”

“Five past seven.”

Emma checked the time on the wall clock. “We have half an hour. Loads of time. I’ll be gone by then. Hell, you’ll be gone by then.”

“Will I, now?”

Emma shrugged. “Probably.”

Regina waited a moment before reluctantly agreeing. “You’re probably right.”

“So… How was your day?”

Regina eyed Emma suspiciously. “It was fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Good classes?” Emma asked.

“Yes.”

“Good breaks?”

“Yes.”

“Good lunch?”

“Yes.”

“Good faculty meeting?”

There it was. “…Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Emma…”

“What? I’m just checking you had a really good day, Professor Mills. You want to hear how my day was?”

“Emma—”

“Because firstly, I was late to school. My son’s been sick and threw up all over my clothes so I had to bath and change him and then change myself. And then I had to wait for his grandma to come and stay with him. Things happen, right? Timing and all that. But I get to school just in time for my first class – I wasn’t even late – and my boss comes into my morning class and just completely tears into me. Oh, and it was in front of my students – did I tell you that bit?”

“ _Emma_.”

“Yeah,” Emma continued with a dry laugh, “I’m in the middle of teaching and the head of the English department comes into my classroom, asks how my morning was going and if I thought tardiness was a good quality in a teacher or if I just thought I was special. And the best part is that she _knew_ my kid was sick. What a dick move, right?”

Regina didn’t reply.

“And that was just my first class,” Emma said. “I get through my next class and then my third class comes in and I hear some of the students talking almost all the way through. It drives me crazy. So eventually I snap at them and ask them what’s so important that they feel like they shouldn’t be listening to a word I’m saying, and you know what they say?” Emma didn’t wait for a response this time. “That Professor Mills used me as an example in her class as to what they shouldn’t be like: ‘untidy, unorganised, and a general mess of an adult’, I believe they said, so they were discussing it. A bit of a shit thing for someone to say, isn’t it? _Especially to_ _students_ ; to young adults who are supposed to respect me. Because who’s going to respect me if my colleagues don’t? It was so fucking humiliating, was what it was. To stand there in front of _my students_ and hear them talking shit about me because my _boss_ did.”

Emma felt her jaw clenching and her fingers tightening around the armrests. Regina avoided eye contact, her eyes watching her fingers twist her ring around and around and around.

“And then lunch rolls around. As if I hadn’t had a bad enough morning, I had a last minute fucking faculty meeting when I could have been checking in on my son. But low and behold, I get to spend lunch listening to my boss go on and on about rules and protocols and procedures.”

Regina swallowed.

“And we’re nearly at the end of the meeting; so close that I can already taste my free period and my lunch and hear my son’s sick, groggy voice. But, no. My boss is that much of a _bitch_ that she takes a deep breath, turns to me and says: _Miss Swan. Have you got anything you’d like to add?_ She doesn’t ask anyone else, just me. And why does she do that? Because she _knows_ I’ve had a bad day. Because she _knows_ that the kids have been talking about me and that my colleagues have been talking about me and because she _knows_ that I’m so fucking angry with her and so _tired_.”

Emma was on the edge of her seat, staring at Regina, willing her to look up, but she didn’t. The desk was far more interesting.

“And I know that she’s had a bad day too, so I don’t react. I take a deep breath and tell her that no, I have nothing to add. But does she leave it there?” Emma scoffed. “Does she fuck. She asks if I’m sure and when I say that I am, she tells me that maybe I might want to participate more in the next meeting. That maybe I should do some research and bring some notes in. That it’s okay if I need to bring fucking _flash cards_ with me if that will help. All in front of all of the people I work with who haven’t said much in the meeting either. Like I’m some kind of fucking _child_ ,” Emma seethed.

Still, Regina said nothing.

“And to boot, to top it all off, _Professor Mills,_ I had to teach two more classes where the kids were talking about me because apparently everyone heard another teacher had said I was as good as _shit_ ,” Emma spat and Regina flinched. “So, I’m glad you had a good day, Regina, because my day was just an absolute fucking delight.”

There was silence whilst Emma’s rage hovered and Regina tried to swallow through the tightness in her throat.

“What, nothing to say?” Emma laughed, dark and empty. “So _now_ you have nothing to say. You didn’t seem to have a problem any other time today!”

“Emma,” Regina breathed, eyes closing and fingers reaching to massage between her eyes once again. “ _Please_.”

“Oh, you’d like me to calm down for you, would you, _Your Majesty_. Well, you know what? I just wanted to be treated like a human being today. I guess we’re both out of luck.”

Regina said something under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I said _I’m sorry_ ,” Regina said, opening her eyes and finally meeting Emma’s. “I’m sorry _._ ”

Emma watched, horrified, as tears quickly filled Regina’s eyes and began sliding down her face.

Regina shook her head. “I can’t—” her breath caught. “I can’t keep _doing_ this. I _can’t_.”

Emma suddenly found herself fearful of what was going to come out of Regina’s mouth next. “Doing what?” she asked hesitantly.

“I can’t keep trying to find a balance between supposedly hating you and being civil for professionalism’s sake because I keep getting it _wrong_ ; I try to be who I’m supposed to be but I can’t find that balance and I take it too far – like today. I _hated_ today. I can’t keep talking behind your back and disapproving of what you do. I don’t want to keep being horrible and talking down to you and pretending to hate you and hurting you when I only _love_ you.” Regina tried futilely to wipe the tears off her face but they kept coming, streaking down her cheeks and dribbling off her chin.

Emma found herself up and out of the chair, striding around the desk to Regina and pulling her into her arms. And Regina on her part let herself be pulled out of her chair and into Emma, sobs racking her body as she buried her face in Emma’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Emma soothed, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“I can’t do this, Emma,” Regina sobbed. “I just want to love you.”

“I know you love me.”

“But _they_ don’t!” Regina exploded, pulling back from Emma’s embrace and pointing towards the door. “They don’t and I hate it!”

Emma floundered briefly with her hands before grasping onto Regina’s forearms, hoping she wouldn’t be pushed away. She wasn’t.

“So, tell me,” she said. “Tell me what you want and I’ll do it. Because I can’t have another day like today, Regina. Do I need to quit my job? Find somewhere else to work?”

“What?” Regina recoiled, but not out of Emma’s reach.

“Because I’ll do it. I’ll lose this job before I lose you. So just tell me.”

Regina was already shaking her head before Emma had finished. “No, never. I’d never ask you to do that.”

“Then what?” Emma pleaded. “Just tell me and it’s done.”

“Just… just—” Regina struggled for the words.

“ _What_?”

“Just _love_ me.”

“I _do_. You _know_ I do.”

“I mean.” Regina breathed out harshly, one arm pulling out of Emma’s grasp to run her fingers through her hair, frustrated. She met Emma’s eyes. “I mean publicly. No more hiding and pretending,” she shook her head. “No more. It’s enough now.”

Regina watched eyebrows furrow and green eyes flicker, searching her face for the answer that she wasn’t sure she was understanding. “You mean… tell?”

“Well, maybe not tell, exactly. But just—”

“Stop hiding,” Emma finished for her.

Regina nodded.

“You mean go against the code of conduct and have you, my superior, and me, your subordinate, be together?”

“It’s just frowned upon. There isn’t an actual _rule._ ”

“There’s a reason we never went public.”

“But it’s been six years, Emma!” Regina did pull away fully, then, with fire in her eyes. She left Emma standing by the desk whilst Regina herself walked to the bookshelf on the far wall. She took a few deep breaths and when she turned back to Emma, her eyes were noticeably less wild; the fire tamed. “It’s been six years,” she said again, calmer. “Six years that you’ve proved how good you are, how amazing you are at what you do. Six years for us to prove that there’s no special treatment or pandering or distracting or anything else ridiculous they think might happen if two professors get together!”

“You know I never needed protecting, right?” Emma asked.

Regina blinked against the onslaught of emotions that rose in her chest. The slight wobble of her bottom lip betrayed her. “I couldn’t ruin your chances. I couldn’t do that. I _wouldn’t._ ”

“I know.”

“There was no other way.”

“I offered to find a job at a different University.”

“But I didn’t _want_ that! Then you’d be two hours away and that wasn’t fair. For any of us.”

“I know,” Emma said gently.

“I couldn’t let you give up everything for me.” It was whispered to the floor but Emma heard it.

She took slow but sure steps to give Regina time to move, but she didn’t. Emma reached out and cupped Regina’s face, her thumbs stroking along the tear tracks.

“I would give up everything for you, Regina. _Everything_.”

Teeth bit into a bottom lip, Regina willing herself to stop the tremble. Emma’s thumb prised Regina’s lip out from between her teeth and she gently replaced them with her lips instead. Regina softened into the kiss; her shoulders sagged and her forehead leaned against Emma’s.

“I love what we have,” Regina whispered shakily into the space between them. “I love everything about our life. But what if it’s not enough? What if we’re not allowed to work together, or they question every grade and motive? What happens next?”

Emma didn’t have an answer. Nothing solid that would pacify them both, anyway. “Nothing bad’s going to happen,” she breathed, hoping her uncertainty wasn’t carried on her words.

“Right,” Regina snorted.

“Okay,” Emma rolled her eyes, “so I don’t know that for definite. But with you and Henry and our friends and family? There isn’t anything that could happen that we can’t get through. Together. You and me.” She paused and then said, “And I don’t think anything can be much worse than today was.”

“I’m so sor—”

“I know,” Emma interrupted. “All I wanted to do was be with you and worry about Henry and go home early, but I couldn’t. I hated it.”

“I hurt you.” Regina sounded so small.

Emma shook her head. “Not intentionally.” There was no denying that she had been hurt, that every vicious word out of Professor Mills’ mouth that day had cut deeply into Emma’s chest and left her heart bleeding and stuttering through the day. “But we’re talking about it now.”

“I hated it too.”

“I know,” Emma soothed.

“I was so worried about Henry and I couldn’t do anything to help him or see you without people knowing or hug you and it all got to be too much today,” Regina admitted. “And you got the full brunt of it.”

“But that’s why we’re talking, right?” Emma tried again. “That’s what this is.”

“Okay.” Regina let out a shaky breath, still overwhelmed by how Emma was; how forgiving and trusting she was. How, simply put, _good_ Emma was.

“Okay?”

Regina leaned in and kissed Emma soundly on the mouth, grounding them both after a day of uncertainty and doubt; second-guessing and getting it wrong; of being so close and yet missing each other by miles.

“I just want to go home,” Regina said quietly, a sad quiver in her voice. “I wanted to be gone hours ago. Can we go home?”

“’Course we can.”

“And can…”

“What?”

“Can we forget about all of this until Monday? I just want a weekend with you and Henry.”

“Yes. Anything.” ‘ _For you’_ went unspoken. Emma placed a lingering kiss on Regina’s forehead.

She waited whilst Regina went back to her desk and packed her bag, the student exams carefully slipped down the back to be finished over the weekend. When she was done, Regina followed Emma to the door.

Emma glanced at the clock on their way out of the office. “Just in time before the cleaners get here.”

Regina locked her office door behind them. Her eyes caught on the name placard that hung proudly on the door. _Professor Regina Mills_. She frowned. She couldn’t help the feeling that came every time she saw it; like the name was four letters too short.

She turned and spotted the small group of cleaners setting up at the end of the corridor and then she was reaching for Emma, her fingers curling around her wrist and pulling her into a deep kiss.

Emma blinked a few times, surprised at the public display of affection, but then Regina’s fingers were lacing with hers and she was being guided down the corridor and out of the building.  
  


* * *

  
Half an hour later, two cars drove into the driveway of 108 Mifflin Street: the first was an old, yellow Volkswagen Beetle that chugged and spluttered more often than not and the second was a sleek, black Mercedes that drove smoothly and effortlessly.

Two owners got out and joined each other before heading into the house.

The house was quiet when Emma and Regina slipped inside the door at half past seven. The downstairs lights were on, but there was no sound or movement, only the lingering smell of a meal recently cooked, laundry detergent and a smell that was simply and inexplicitly _home._

They slipped their shoes off, left their belongings by the door and quietly made their way into the kitchen. While Regina reached for the wine glasses, Emma slipped by her, squeezing at Regina’s hips as she did so, and made her way to the living room.

She watched as her son slept soundly, his body wedged in between his grandparents’ as they dozed on the sofa, looking thoroughly uncomfortable and yet entirely at peace.

She went about picking up the few scattered toys around the living room, being sure to leave out her son’s wooden train track that they had been playing with almost every day for the past eighteen months since his fourth birthday. She switched the television off and her father stirred.

“Hey, there, kid.”

“Hey. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, it’s good.” He cleared his throat gently and roused his wife. She blinked awake and smiled when she spotted Emma.

“Hello, Sweetheart,” Mary Margaret said, getting up off the sofa to hug her daughter.

“Hey, Mum. Sorry we’re back so late.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

Mary Margaret eyed Emma suspiciously and then, “You’re back three hours later than you were hoping to be – which I don’t mind,” Mary Margaret was quick to placate, “but that suggests that not everything’s okay?”

“It’s just been a heck of a day,” Emma explained vaguely, but one look at her daughter and Mary Margaret didn’t push. “How is he?” Emma nodded towards her son, still sleeping on the sofa.

“He’s doing okay,” Mary Margaret said. “His temperature’s gone down.”

“Good,” Emma bobbed her head, “good.”

“You want me to take him up to bed?” David offered.

“No, thanks, Dad. We’ll do it.”

“Then we’ll get going,” Mary Margaret said, hugging her daughter once again.

“Do you need anything?” Regina asked from her place leaning against doorway, arms folded, temple resting on the frame.

Mary Margaret’s smile softened as she took in Regina’s tired eyes and weary smile. “No, thank you,” she said, approaching Regina and drawing her into a hug. Regina fell into it, hugging the shorter woman back. “Are you okay?” Mary Margaret asked into Regina’s hair.

“Just tired,” Regina replied, easing back.

Mary Margaret brushed Regina’s cheek. “You make sure you all get some sleep, okay? You work far too much.”

“Thank you, Snow,” Regina said.

The endearing nickname wasn’t lost on Mary Margaret; she kissed Regina’s cheek. “You just make sure you all have a good weekend. Make sure you take care of yourselves.”

Regina smiled. “Always.”

Mary Margaret headed towards the front door and David soon followed, Emma and Regina walking them out.

“Dinner’s in the fridge for you both,” Mary Margaret said as she stepped outside. “It just needs heating up. And I cleared your laundry.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Regina said.

“It’s one less thing for you to worry about, sweetheart.”

Regina smiled gratefully.

“Thanks, Mum,” Emma said, hugging her mum goodbye once again.

“Any time, girls – you know that,” David replied, hugging the women in turn.

“Have a good night,” Regina called as David and Margaret walked to the truck parked on the street.

“Sunday dinner next week?” Mary Margaret called back.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Emma said, leaning into Regina’s side. Regina wound her arm around Emma’s waist as they watched Emma’s parents climb into the truck and drive off.

“I’ll pass them over something mid-week,” Regina said as they retreated into the house and closed and locked the door for the night. “Maybe apple pie. I know it’s your dad’s favourite.”

Emma hummed. “Maybe you could make two – one for them and one for us.”

Regina squeezed Emma’s hand as she headed back through to the living room. “Anything for you, dear,” she echoed Emma’s words from earlier.

They watched Henry for a moment; his small body curled up on the sofa and his chest rising and falling with deep breaths that his blocked up little nose couldn’t manage the night before.

“Mum said his temperature’s gone down.”

“His breathing’s better.”

“Bed time?”

Regina nodded and stepped forward to scoop her son up.

Henry’s arms and legs automatically wrapped around his mother’s body. His head settled on her shoulder as she stroked his back.

“Mummy?” he asked, voice gravelly and half-asleep.

“Yes, my little prince?”

But there was no answer as Henry’s breathing evened out again.

Regina carried Henry up the stairs and Emma followed. He stirred again when Regina tucked him in.

“Mummy?”

“Yes, darling?” Regina answered from her perch on the edge of his bed. She gently swept his hair away from his sleep-filled eyes.

“Grandma put me in my Spiderman pyjamas, but I wanted to wear the Frozen ones.”

“How about we wear those ones tomorrow night?” she offered.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Is Mama here?”

“Hey, kid,” Emma said, kneeling down next to the bed and leaning so close their noses brushed. “How’re you doing?”

She got a sleepy smile. “Missed you and Mummy today,” Henry whispered.

“We’re here now. You go to sleep and we’ll have all weekend together.”

“Okay,” Henry said, almost inaudible as he lost his battle with sleep.

Emma kissed his cheek. “Night, kid.”

Regina followed suit, making sure Henry was properly tucked in, her hand feeling his forehead just to check.

They stood in the doorway for a moment, watching, and then pulled the door to, leaving a small gap for the landing light to creep into Henry’s room.  
  


* * *

  
Emma watched Regina skol almost the entire glass of wine the moment they stepped foot in the kitchen. “You good?” she asked, taking a sip of her own.

Regina exhaled. “I’m hungry and tired and I just want today to be over.”

“Well, I can fix one of those things in the next ten minutes,” Emma said, reaching into the fridge and pulling out the two plates. She uncovered them. “Oh, I love Mum’s casserole.”

When one plate was in the microwave, she turned to see Regina leaning against the kitchen counter, eyes closed, cradling her second glass of wine.

“Hey,” Emma said, reaching for Regina’s hips and leaning against her, stealing a kiss.

Regina smiled, eyes still closed, and hummed. “Hey, yourself.”

In their home when it was just the two of them, Regina lost all semblance of authority; Emma watched her shed the layers of professionalism and superiority with every step deeper into the house and become a gentle, loving wife and a wonderful, attentive mother who made their house a beautiful home.

Emma extracted the wine glass from between them and set in on the counter. Regina’s arms wound around Emma’s neck, played with the downy hairs there, and Emma settled fully against her.

“Want to make out whilst we wait?” Emma quipped.

“Not particularly,” Regina replied, and kissed Emma once to lessen the sting. “I like just this,” she said, resting her head against Emma’s.

Emma loved it when Regina was like this: sleepy and soft and so, so beautiful, even after the kind of day they had had.

They stayed like that – separated only briefly whilst Emma switched the plates in the microwave – until both meals were heated up.

“Come on,” Emma murmured into Regina’s hair when the microwaved beeped again.

They ate slowly and quietly across the table from one another and when their plates were empty, Emma soaked them in the sink and left them; they’d be fine until the morning, something Regina hated but Emma didn’t think she would mind tonight. She joined her wife on the sofa, taking the offered wine glass – topped up for a third time in the span of an hour – and settling in beside her, wrapping her arm around her as Regina laid back against her chest.

No words were needed; only the comfort of their bodies sinking into each other and their breaths syncing. With no distractions – no students, no work, no parents, no son – the exhaustion from the day finally took its toll and Emma soon found her eyes closing; she would rest them for just a minute.

Something woke her, jerking her awake, her eyes searching the room. It was still mostly dark, lit only by the light coming in from the kitchen. Her eyes landed on her lap. She’d nodded off and now her wine covered her jeans. (Something Regina teased her endlessly about.

“You dress like a student,” Regina had said whilst they dressed for a particularly early faculty meeting in her first year as Department Head.

“That’s just inappropriate.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying, dear.”

A beat and then, “You’re not supposed to touch a student the way you touch me.”

And at the aghast look on Regina’s face, Emma had burst out laughing, only to be cut off a moment later by her wife’s lips.

“I’ll show you inappropriate,” Regina had growled.

It was a good job it was early and that Henry was a deep sleeper.

It was also a good job David had pointed out – albeit awkwardly and blushing – the deep red lipstick Emma had smudged down her neck when he came to sort Henry out for school for them.)

“ _Fuck,_ ” she hissed under her breath.

A low, throaty chuckle resonated through her chest. “Problem, dear?” Regina asked, voice gravelly.

“Did I wake you?” Emma asked, righting her wine glass and finishing the last dregs that remained in it.

“I never fell asleep.” Regina sat slowly and peered around at her wife’s lap. She smirked. “You definitely did, though.”

“I’m all wet,” Emma mumbled, attempting to pull the material away from her thighs. A single eyebrow rose and the smirk deepened. “Not like _that_ ,” Emma laughed.

Regina hummed. “I imagine it’s time for us to retire for the night.”

Emma squinted in the dark at the clock on the wall. “How is it that late already?”

Regina rose from the sofa, holding her hand out to Emma. “Comfort seems to make time accelerate.”

Emma let herself be tugged up. “I’d rather a day with you than a thousand years without you.”

Emma watched a pretty pink blush colour her wife’s cheeks. “Charmer,” she mumbled, kissing her one, twice and then—

“I feel like I’ve pissed myself.”

And the moment broke, Regina laughing at Emma and Emma laughing with her.

“Come on, pretty lady,” Emma said dragging Regina from the room.

Wine glasses joined the plates in the sink (“Em—”

“They’ll still be there in the morning.”

For once Regina didn’t argue.) and then lights were turned out, locks were checked and they were heading upstairs to bed.  
  


* * *

  
Emma waited.

And waited.

And continued to wait whilst Regina tried and failed and tried and failed to get comfortable and her sighs grew more exaggerated every time.

Emma spooning her? Not comfortable.

Regina spooning Emma? Not comfortable.

Snuggling into Emma’s side? Not comfortable.

Almost hanging off the edge of the bed? Not comfortable.

Regina huffed and flopped onto her back. (Regina would argue that she was a bit more refined than that and that she _delicately rolled_. Emma would say that she definitely did not.)

And Emma waited.

“Oh, for Goodness sake,” Regina snapped, turning and facing Emma in the dark. She could make out only the shadow of her wife’s face, the only light being the streetlight at the end of the driveway slipping in through the edges of the pulled curtains.

“Yes, sweetness, honey pie, love of my life?” Emma asked, sweetly.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Oh,” Emma said, “I hadn’t noticed.”

Regina just sighed again. “I can’t wait until Monday.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Regina repeated, but then silence enveloped the room. Emma reached out and sought Regina’s hand in the dark, squeezing gently. It was enough. “I want to go to work together,” Regina finally said.

“Okay,” Emma said. “My bug?” she grinned into the darkness.

“Over my dead body.”

“So, we arrive at work together. What else?”

“I don’t really know,” Regina admitted. “I don’t know what I want but I want more.”

“Well. How about lunch if our schedules match up?” Emma suggested.

“I like that idea.”

“And how about we argue less?”

“I thought that was a given.”

“And how about smiling? Can I smile at you?”

Regina laughed. “I love your smile.”

Emma’s thumb stroked over the back of Regina’s hand. “That’s good, then, because I love yours too.”

They were content to lay in bed and watch their shadows for a while but then Emma felt Regina tense beside her.

“Babe?”

“What will people say?” Regina asked and even in the darkness, Emma could see the dejection on her wife’s face.

“Nothing,” Emma said, “because you’re Professor Regina Fucking Mills and you are scary as fuck.”

“I am not!” Regina laughed.

“I think that Freshman who literally wet himself when you told him off in the corridor for inappropriately touching that girl without consent would disagree with you. He quit school, Regina.”

“He deserved everything he got.”

“Yes, he did,” Emma said, “but it proves my point.” Emma leaned forward and found Regina’s lips. “I promise no one will say anything. And if they do, I’m not above punching a student.”

“You will do no such thing.” Regina scolded.

“Fine,” Emma conceded. “But a month of detentions should do the trick.”

“This is University, Emma, not high school.”

“It doesn’t matter how old you are, babe; detention’s fucking scary.”

“You and your crass mouth.”

“I know for a fact that you _love_ my mouth.”

“Hush,” Regina said and silenced her wife with a lingering kiss before she could say another word.

It was then that Regina pulled away, turned over and scooted back into Emma’s body, her wife’s arms circling around her and pulling her impossibly closer. “I love you.”

A kiss was placed between her shoulders. “I love you, too.”  
  


* * *

  
Monday morning brought about a new side of his mummy that Henry, in all his five and a half years of life, had never seen, but Emma, well, Emma had helped Regina through her final exams, her uncertainty as a new professor and then as a department head, and had spent Henry’s first few months in the world reassuring her when she was consumed by the fear that she would end up being a mother to Henry like Cora Mills was to her, so Emma knew the drill. She could handle a nervous – albeit she looked downright terrified – Regina.

The two watched as Regina aimlessly pottered about the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers without taking things out or putting things in; as she moved items from one place to another and then back again; as she tidied already pristine surfaces.

“What’s mummy doing?” Henry asked around a mouthful of toast, his healthy appetite back after his illness.

“I don’t know, kid,” Emma said from her place at the table next to him. “Maybe she’s lost something.”

“What’s she lost?”

A beat and then, “Her cool.”

“I heard that,” Regina snapped, now rearranging the fridge.

“Is your cool in the fridge, mummy?” Henry asked.

“No,” Regina bit, righting herself and going to pour herself another cup of coffee.

“Maybe you should check in the freezer,” Henry suggested, “It’s colder in there.”

It took everything Emma had in her to fight back the laugh threatening to burst out at her son’s comment.

“Henry, your mother’s just being cheeky,” Regina said over the rim of her mug. “I’ve not lost my cool.”

Henry eyed Regina and lowered his voice to ask Emma, “Did mummy ever have cool in the first place?”

Emma snorted coffee up her nose and choked as it spluttered out, her laughter deep and loud. Henry grinned at her. Regina glared at them.

“ _Oh my God_ ,” Emma wheezed, trying to catch her breath but still laughing.

“I’ll appreciate you both finishing stuffing your faces and getting ready for school, thank you very much.”

Henry washed his last bite of toast down with the rest of his water. He got down from his chair and dropped his plate into the sink. Then he fetched his little step, clambered onto it and refilled his glass from the tap. He turned to Regina. “Here you go, mummy,” he said, holding out the glass to her. “Have a drink of cool.”

And Emma lost it again, except this time Henry laughed too and it was all Regina could do not to smile at their antics.

“If only it was that easy, kid,” Emma said, mussing his hair as she approached. She took the glass from him before gathering him up in her arms and tossing him over her shoulder. “C’mon, time to brush our teeth.” Henry giggled.

“If he’s sick down your back, it’s both rightfully deserved and your job to clean it up,” Regina said.

“All in a day’s work, baby,” Emma said, pecking Regina on the lips and hauling their son to the bathroom.

Regina shook her head at the pair as they retreated.

She eyed the glass on the counter.

She downed it.

She needed all the cool she could get today.  
  


* * *

  
They dropped Henry off at the _Early Birds_ club together, a novelty for them because one of them – Regina – almost always left first so that she was at the University early and in plenty of before Emma (no one could guess they were together if they never arrived at the same time) and the other one – Emma – almost always did the school run because she had carried Henry and it was no secret that she had a son. Henry loved it, holding onto both of his mothers’ hands as they walked him into school, not yet at the stage where they were an embarrassment and holding hands was uncool.

But after kissing him goodbye and leaving for work, Regina’s grip on the wheel tightened, her knuckles whitening as her jaw clenched and unclenched.

Emma, on her part, sat in silence and watched her wife, wondering not for the first time if this was worth the anxiety that had been rippling off Regina in tsunamis all weekend.

The closer they got, the firmer Regina’s grip on the wheel became. Emma slid her hand over her wife’s and Regina flinched.

Emma coiled back immediately and Regina’s reaction was immediate too. “Sorry,” she rushed out and reached for Emma’s hand. “Sorry,” she mumbled, kissing each of Emma’s knuckles in turn and then lacing their hands over the centre console of the automatic.

“We don’t have to do this,” Emma said.

“I want to.”

“You couldn’t focus all weekend, you couldn’t stomach breakfast, you look like you’re two seconds away from throwing up and you nearly broke the steering wheel.”

“I want to.”

“Regina.”

Regina swallowed. “I do. Really,” she cast a brief glance at Emma. “I’m just nervous.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because…?

Regina sighed, letting Emma’s hand go and running her fingers through her hair. Emma refrained from telling her that the neatly styled curls she had had that morning were already well and truly ruined. They hadn’t even made it to campus yet. “What if people don’t listen to me anymore?”

“What? Why wouldn’t they?”

“Because they’ll _know._ They’ll know about us and that I love you and then they’ll know I have a son and – oh, God, what if they think I’m a bad mother to Henry? Or not his “ _real mother_ ”?”

“Regina, take a breath a minute,” Emma tried to placate, reaching over to lay her hand on Regina’s thigh and squeezing. She felt her tense but then relax under her hand. “Why would they ever think you’re a bad mother?”

“Because I’m not _nice_ , Emma. I’m the _Evil Queen_. I’m mean and a hard-ass. I’m a bitch with a stick so far up my ass that someone needs to give it to me good to get me to unwind a bit. And then maybe fuck me again just to be sure.”

Regina was back to clenching the steering wheel, her breaths coming out fast and harsh. Emma held back her anger at the stupid, ignorant _fucks_ who thought speaking about her wife that way was okay; like Regina wasn’t the most loving, caring, _kind_ person that Emma had ever known. Like she wasn’t a person with feelings. Like she was a monster.

“You,” Emma said, brushing her hand through Regina’s curls to both soothe her and to try to tame them a bit, “are amazing. What they think doesn’t matter. No,” Emma cut Regina off before she had time to argue. “What a few students have said out of the _hundreds of thousands_ who have come through these doors over the last decade is irrelevant. What else do people say about you, huh? Tell me that.”

Regina mumbled under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I don’t _know_ , Emma.”

“You do know, love,” Emma said, softly. “You just don’t listen. You don’t focus. You only hear the bad stuff. So, let me enlighten you.”

“Emma—”

“Sure, they say that you’re a hard-ass, but they also say that you push them to be better. You’re mean, are you? What about all the students who have struggled or had a question and you have spent as long as they needed you to explaining things to them over and over and over again until they got it? Out of hours tutoring because they’re falling behind? You’re the first to offer. And that girl who was dyslexic? You spent hours writing out pages of notes for her to simplify the textbooks. She got an A in your class, didn’t she?”

Regina ground her jaw, but Emma saw her hands loosening, her eyes focusing, her breathing calming.

“And maybe you are a bitch sometimes. So am I – we all are. This is Uni. They don’t get a free pass here. And maybe you’re not all doe-eyed like Ashley Boyd, but you push students further than they ever knew they could go, make them better than they ever thought they could be. You work harder than anyone else, than all of us put together, and if that means that you get tense, well,” Emma said, grinning, “I’m the only one who gets to ‘give it to you good’ until you are soft and pliant and so fucking _responsive_ and falling asleep after you come.”

Regina blushed and laughed shortly. Emma saw her wife coming back to her.

“Today’s going to be fine, baby,” Emma said as they turned into the English department car park and headed to Regina’s reserved parking space. “I promise.”

Regina turned the ignition off. “Okay,” she breathed out.

Emma was quick to unbuckle her seat belt and round the car to Regina’s door. She took a brief minute to centre herself; showing her own apprehension wouldn’t do to help Regina in hers, so she shook it off and plastered a smile on her face. Fake it until you make it and all that, she thought, before she opened the door and offered a hand to her wife. “Ready?” she asked.

Regina exhaled again, gave a decisive nod and then placed her hand in Emma’s.

It was early, only just half past seven. Most of the campus was deserted; there was a feeling of kenopsia so early in the morning, normally so used to the hustle and bustle of school life, but other than a couple of classes that started at eight and the few diligent early risers, the campus never really picked up its pace until nine. Regina looked around and spotted only two other students, both so consumed by their own existences that they didn’t bother to notice the two professors arriving together. That, or they simply didn’t care. It calmed Regina, though only marginally.

They didn’t walk hand-in-hand through the doors and into a corridor full of people who stopped and stared the moment they entered. Instead, Emma shouldered her satchel and juggled a stack of student papers as well as her travel mug of coffee, whilst Regina carried her briefcase and her own travel mug. Which, now that she thought about it, it was odd that none of the students had picked up on it – they _matched_ , for God’s sake. Whereas Emma’s had the image of a pink tiara on one side and read, ‘ _I’m a Princess. Let’s assume I’m always right… Unless my wife is around.’_ on the other side, Regina’s had the image of a red crown on one side and on the other read, ‘ _Forget the Princess. I’m the Queen. I’ve got this shit handled.’_ They were a ‘couples’ gift’ from Ruby four years ago when simultaneously, Regina was made Department Head and Emma was made a full-professor. A gift which Emma outwardly loved and Regina outwardly scoffed at.

(They both loved them.)

They took the stairs up to the third floor and Regina visibly slowed at the doors to the corridor.

“Okay?” Emma asked, a hand placed on the small of Regina’s back.

“Of course. Just catching my breath.”

“Liar,” Emma said.

“And now I’ve caught it” Regina said, walking through the doors.

Emma watched the nervous wreck her wife had become transform into the much-respected Professor Mills the closer they got to the staff room, her back straight, chin up, stride confident. A clear message: _I_ dare _you to fuck with me._

Regina marched ahead of Emma into the staff room – where her step faltered. It was empty.

“Way to ruin my entrance,” she mumbled under her breath as she entered the room.

Emma laughed heartily as she followed. “Such a drama queen.”

Regina set about placing a single-sided sheet of notes at each place around the table, there for reference and additional note-taking if needed.

(“No one needs three double-sided pages of notes,” Emma had said the night before Regina’s first faculty meeting as Department Head.

“I need to make sure everything’s covered,” Regina had replied tightly.

“Okay, then. No one _wants_ three double-sided pages. They’re professors, babe. They’ll remember,” Emma had said. She had watched Regina’s face crumple with the feeling of inadequacy she had been feeling since she got the promotion. “It’s a great idea, though!” Emma had been quick to assuage. “But how about half a page instead?”

Regina had wanted so desperately to prove herself as more than capable, ignoring every reassurance Emma had thrown her way that they wouldn’t have chosen her if they didn’t already think she was, but she also wanted to be _appreciated_ , she had confessed to her wife in the cloak of darkness. “Two pages – double-sided.”

“Three-quarters.”

Regina had narrowed her eyes. “One page – double sided.”

“One page – single sided, wide margined, double spaced, and it has to be bullet pointed, not paragraphed.”

Regina had pursed her lips and grumbled. “Fine.”)

Emma, on her part, lingered at the far end of the table away from where Regina sat. It had been unspoken between them and seeing as they supposedly hated each other, it made sense that they wouldn’t want to be sat near each other for an hour-long meeting. But now, Emma hesitated.

They had decided to stop hiding, but she still knew she needed to tread carefully. Regina wasn’t going to suddenly be the soft and loving wife in front of their colleagues – or ever, probably, and Emma was okay with that, but she didn’t know exactly how close they would be within the parameters of their workplace. Not close in their physical proximity, but close as in allowing those around them to glimpse into their lives: of Henry – because it had killed Regina how much Emma could talk about him and yet Regina couldn’t mention their gorgeous son, of their family, of weekend plans and what they were having for dinner and _Oh, can you get more toilet roll on your way home?_ Because as much as they had discussed things, they hadn’t once over the weekend said exactly where the line was drawn between loving couple and work colleagues when at work.

“You’re hovering,” Regina said, breaking Emma out of her thoughts.

“Where do I sit?”

Regina looked up from scanning the page of notes. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Regina said after a moment, “I suppose it’s pointless you being all the way down there.”

“Yeah?”

“Need I repeat myself or are you capable of following a simple instruction?” Regina froze and looked up, wide eyed. “Sorry.”

It stung, but Emma shrugged it off. _Old habits die hard and all that_. She stopped half way up the table. “Here?”

“Or here,” Regina said, gesturing to the seat to her right but not looking up from her notes.

“About here?” Emma asked, settling herself in the seat. “Or shall I shuffle closer because there’s still a few inches between our chairs?” She grinned.

“Oh, hush.”

And Emma so wanted to close the distance and kiss that beautiful mouth, but who knew what reaction that would have garnered. It was a good job, then, that right at that moment Graham Humbert strolled through the door. Regina’s smile left her face instantly.

“Um... Are you guys feeling okay?” he asked as he tentatively approached the table, eyes flicking back and forth between the two women seated at the table.

“We were women, the last time I checked. I can’t imagine much has changed since this morning,” Regina said, eyes never leaving her notes. Emma realised the notes for this meeting may be referred to by the Department Head more so than in any other meeting previously, if for no other reason than to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, which, as Regina had managed to convince herself, would not be kind. “For what reason would we be feeling unwell, Professor Humbert?”

Because no matter how much Regina despised the man for flirting with her and subsequently asking her out numerous times until she quite publicly – that is to say, in front of faculty, not students; she was still a professional – turned him down and made it quite clear she would never be interested, she treated everyone with the respect they deserved, and that meant referring to them by their hard-earnt titles.

“No—no reason,” he stumbled. “Just—”

“Then do take your seat, Professor.”

And he did, but not without casting Emma a questioning glance. Emma just shrugged in response and sipped her coffee.

The next few people to enter the room had similar responses to the two “arch-nemeses” sitting amicably next to each other, although no one else had the courage to question it aloud. But glances were thrown around and the tension could be felt. Regina felt it – she hated it. This was what she had wanted to avoid for so long and now it was inevitable. She shifted in her seat, bringing her slightly closer to Emma. Emma must have sensed it, for she slouched in her chair a little more – something Professor Mills would have usually had a field day with (actually, so would her wife, calling her a child and then kissing her), but not today – and extended her legs, bringing her calves in contact with Regina’s under the table and away from the questioning eyes. It seemed to calm Regina enough that by the time all seats – bar one – were taken and the clock hit eight o’clock, Regina had enough resolve in her to look up, meet the eyes of her colleagues and begin the meeting.

Two minutes later, the door slammed open and a brunette sauntered in.

“Nice of you to join us, Professor Lucas.” And if she was the type of person who rolled her eyes, she would have, but Professor Mills wasn’t, so she didn’t. (Regina, on the other hand, would totally have rolled her eyes and Emma smiled to herself knowingly.)

Ruby took in the scene in front of her – of her best friend sitting awfully close to The Queen – no qualifier necessary to describe the woman; she was just that to Ruby: a fucking _Queen_ – and smirked, taking her usual seat next to Regina, because although most people didn’t want to sit next to Professor Mills, it was always entertaining to see what poor sap had no choice but to take the only empty seat and subsequently get chewed out for sitting too close to her, or breathing too loudly, or just existing. Plus, she always smelled _so good_.

No one was surprised when Regina said nothing more; for some odd reason, she had a soft spot for the defiant professor, who wore red highlights in her hair and questionably inappropriate clothing to school.

But, brief distraction over, Regina continued on. The air was filled with apprehension; it was fifteen minutes into the meeting and not once had Regina snapped at anyone, taken the chance to embarrass anyone, to single anyone out, and it left everyone instilled with the fear of God, hoping that it wouldn’t be them because when it happened – because it _would_ – it would be terrifying for them all.

It was at that moment that Emma took a sip of her coffee and was too slow to stop the now lukewarm liquid seeping into her sweater.

Everyone stopped, dread rising up. They waited for the outburst of ridicule Emma Swan would be up against in her sloppiness. And perhaps worse than usual as the _Evil Queen_ was yet to make an appearance in today’s meeting, and everyone knew Emma Swan was her favourite victim.

“ _Shit,_ ” Emma said, oblivious to everyone else in the room, looking around for something to wipe herself with. A tissue appeared in front of her and she took it. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

Regina never broke stride in her talking and everyone was stunned. Professor Mills _never_ missed something Emma Swan did, _never_ held back, _never_ let her leave the room without knowing that she was inferior.

So it was, that the next thing that happened sent the room into panic. There were accidents and mishaps and then there was just plain stupidity and playing with fire.

Emma, after bunching the tissue up and dropping it on the table, almost unthinkingly reached over for Regina’s mug and took a sip.

The room went still, held their breaths. Everyone sat in silence, waited with trepidation for the absolute _lashing_ Emma Swan would be on the receiving end of in just milliseconds. It was inescapable and they were all terrified for her.

They waited for it.

And waited.

And then—

“As long as you save me a few sips, dear,” Regina said. “Now, onto the graffiti on the side of the History building. A bit general and certainly not the concern of the English Department, but do just keep your eyes open and remember to report any behaviour untoward.”

“Hold up, hold up,” Professor Leroy Clark interrupted, finally the one to break. “Hold _up_.”

“Something you’d like to add, Professor Clark?” Regina said.

“What the heck just happened?”

And everyone waited again, in desperate need for an explanation for the weird morning.

“As much as she drinks like a child and it is absolutely her own fault,” Regina cast a pointed glance at Emma, “my wife is a hazard to the world without enough caffeine in the morning and I refuse to be responsible for that. Now, back to point twelve—”

“Yes!” Professor Merida Broch exclaimed, and began laughing.

“No, no, no, no, _no,_ ” Professor August Booth was quick to cry out. “You just had to wait until Christmas! Just until _Christmas_. I was so _close_.”

And Regina watched as bodies shuffled and purses and wallets were pulled out, as money was exchanged between colleagues complaining and colleagues ecstatic.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ruby swore, handing Belle French fifty dollars. “I was a year out. A whole fucking _year_.”

And then it dawned on Regina and she watched _horrified_ as the money continued to flick between colleagues.

“You made _bets_?!” she screeched, but no one was listening.

“I just lost fifty bucks,” Ruby said. “But there’s more,” she grinned. “Now that you two are finally _out and proud_ , you can clear up some minor details.” Ruby waggled her eyebrows.

“And what, pray tell, are these _minor details_ , Miss Lucas?” Regina seethed. Emma saw the vein bulging in her forehead.

“Well,” Ruby started, ignoring the vein and apparently now the mediator as everyone watched on. “How long have you been together?”

Before Ruby could break her wife, Emma piped up. “Twelve years.”

More swearing, more grumbling, more laughter, as more money swapped hands.

“Henry’s five,” Ruby pointed out.

“Yes,” Regina found her voice in light of their son.

“So… both your son.”

“ _Yes_.”

Again, the money continued to be traded.

“Oh, fuck my life,” Professor Humbert said as he gave away more money. “I totally ballsed this up. Twelve years. So, the kid’s yours _and_ yours _and_ you’re married.” He stopped mid-way from letting go of another twenty-dollar bill and looked at Emma. “I don’t suppose you had an affair and Henry’s not Regina’s, by any chance?”

And Regina looked about reader to _murder_ him.

He ducked his head. “Fucking happy-families with these two,” he mumbled to himself.

“Totally called it!” August gloated, taking two hundred dollars off of Killian Jones. Two hundred dollars _against_ them? What a sleazy pirate. “No one hates anyone that much,” August grinned.

“I beg to differ,” Regina chimed in, shooting daggers at Graham. And then Regina lost all air of Professor Mills and, defeated, scrapped the rest of the notes. “That’s it,” she said, “Get out of here, the lot of you.”

The professors didn’t need to be told twice, although there was almost none of the pre-existing fear of her that they usually carried around with them and Regina swallowed against the lump rising in her throat because she had been so afraid of losing their respect as the Department Head and fellow professor that she hadn’t even thought about what it would be like if her colleagues actually started _liking_ her instead.

Eventually, only Ruby and August were left, the latter bounding over and pulling Emma into a crushing hug. “Made almost five-hundred dollars,” he hooted. “What easy money! Except for when you’d confirm it. I said you’d get caught making out at the Christmas party.”

“What?” Emma laughed.

“We all know what Regina’s like on eggnog,” he jested.

Regina tried to look offended, but it was more energy than it was worth; Ruby had walked in on a particularly handsy, slightly drunk Regina trying unsuccessfully to convince her wife to leave their own family Christmas get-together in their own home so that she could ravish her. Ruby had been all too willing to regale the tale later on in the evening, much to Regina’s embarrassment.

“I will end you,” Regina threatened August, but it held no weight when he pulled her into a quick hug and she hugged back.

“Proud of you,” he whispered to her and then he was gone.

“I… I don’t even know what just happened,” Regina said.

Emma saw how frazzled her wife looked and took a risk, slipping her arm hesitantly around her waist. When Regina pressed into her, Emma tightened her grip and kissed Regina’s hairline.

“What just _happened,_ ” Ruby said, “is that no one cares and they all think it’s wonderful and now you can come for drinks with the rest of us like normal human beings.”

“We do still have a son, Miss Lucas.”

“That’s what grandparents are for,” Ruby replied. “And if not, then Granny offered to look after him. Speaking of – I owe her money. She won the bet – down to the _week_. I swear she’s some kind of witch or something,” Ruby muttered as she turned to leave the room.

“Your grandmother was in on it as well?” Regina asked, shocked.

“She’s got to get her kicks where she can these days,” Ruby called over her shoulder.

They were alone.

“Are you okay?” Emma whispered, afraid to talk too loudly.

And then Regina started laughing. “Of all the scenarios, that one never crossed my mind,” she said, gathering her bits together. She turned and kissed Emma’s cheek. “Lunch at one? I’ll come by your classroom.” And then she, too, was leaving the room, smiling and laughing under her breath, “Granny. Of all people!”

That was it. They had broken her wife.  
  


* * *

  
There was talk – as there always seemed to be within the English department – of the _Evil Queen’s_ good mood. Students spoke of how she smiled, laughed at a student’s joke, even made a few of her own, and that was just in her first class. She seemed lighter, freer, and students didn’t know why.

“Hey, Prof,” Roderick greeted as he sauntered into the room and took his seat.

“Cutting it close,” Emma said in lew of a greeting, pointedly looking at the clock that read two seconds to quarter to eleven.

Roderick grinned. “But not late, am I?”

Emma laughed. He was innocently charming; all talk and no game (she’d know; she’d witnessed it and had cringed when he actually thought asking a girl if she had fallen from Heaven was a classy thing to say.

She’d later kept him back after class and given him some dos and don’ts.)

“How’s your sister?” Emma asked.

Roderick bobbed his head. “She got into NYU.”

“That’s great! Give her my congratulations.”

“Will do,” he replied, but it was solemn. Emma knew how close Roderick was to his younger sister, him being her legal guardian, and knew that it must be killing him to let her go.

“Got your essay finished yet?” she asked him.

He baulked. “I thought it was due next week.”

“It is,” Emma assured, “but if you want me to look it over beforehand in office hours then just come by.”

He sent her a smile, one that showed his young age as well as the hardships he had been faced with; boyish yet aging. “Thanks, Prof.”

“Anytime, kid. Now…” and Emma began her second lesson of the day.

She was walking around, bouncing between group discussions and chiming in when she felt the need to.

“Hey, Roddy, you hear about what happened with Professor Mills?” Emma heard Peter ask Roderick. Because her students knew that she wouldn’t tolerate them calling Professor Mills the _Evil Queen_. It was tried and tested; after a few people got sent to the Dean’s office and she had given countless lectures on respect and kindness instead of the actual lesson, her students had got the message. And it seemed not only that, but her lectures – albeit not the ones that would help them get a degree – actually stuck; she had heard many of her students over the years interrupt their friends or quickly butt into a conversation that they weren’t a part of to correct the speaker that the _Evil Queen_ didn’t exist and her name was, in fact, Professor Mills, and _they’d do well to show her some Goddamn respect_. Emma may have got very intense in her lectures regarding her wife. Sue her.

“No,” Roderick replied to the boy in his group because he wasn’t interested in gossip, but Peter told him anyway.

“Gideon totally misinterpreted her good mood and said he hadn’t done the homework but he’d get it to her tomorrow. She totally failed his ass,” Peter snicked.

“Well,” Roderick replied, “he should have done the work.” Emma loved that kid.

“You aren’t children, Peter,” Emma said from behind him, making the young man jump. “We won’t coddle you. I dare you to try that one on me,” she said. “See just how quickly I fail you too.”

“Sorry, Professor,” Peter mumbled, rightfully embarrassed, and returned to the actual topic of discussion.  
  


* * *

  
In Emma’s third class that Monday – because she had three back-to-back classes from half past nine with fifteen minutes prep time in between on a Monday morning and just how did she manage to get quite so unlucky? – two girls entered talking endlessly and loudly and took their seats right up front, so Emma couldn’t help but overhear from where she was trying to find where exactly she had saved the relevant PowerPoint.

“I knew she was hot,” the first girl – dark skin, tight curls, swagger – Sabine – said, “but she smiled in my last class and I swear, she’s fucking _beautiful._ ”

Oh, young love. Emma remembered those same thoughts when she and Regina met when they were younger.

“ _God,_ the things I’d let her do to me,” the second girl – blonde hair, blue eyes, totally dorky – Tilly – said.

Or young lust.

Sabine laughed. “She’s married.”

Maybe not quite like Regina and her, then.

“So? She’s literally never talked about her husband, like, ever. Or anything personal. Maybe she’s so unhappy that she’d willingly take it out on me,” Tilly waggled her eyebrows and grinned lewdly.

“You’re disgusting,” Sabine said to her friend, laughing. “And it would never happen. Her cup literally says she’s a queen. What she needs is a King, not some simpering servant like you.”

And in that moment, Emma realised they were talking about her wife. She stood quickly, hitting her leg on her desk in the process. She swore under her breath but hurriedly started the lesson, PowerPoint be damned.

“Let’s begin!” she shouted, louder than necessary if the few winces she received were of any indication. “Textbooks out to page eighty-three. Girls,” she looked to the two gossiping friends in the front, “enough with the talking, thank you.”

Perhaps harsh, but her skin felt itchy hearing the two girls ( _young women_ , the feminist in her corrected, but she didn’t think they deserved that respect in that moment) speak of her wife and how she must be in a severely unhappy, heterosexual relationship. It almost made her want to cry. Reading about big, fat, stupid white men who couldn’t write for shit would sort that out.  
  


* * *

  
Just before one o’clock, the class wrapped up and students began packing up and heading out. Emma herself closed down the PowerPoint (that she had inevitably needed so had to find eventually) and gathered her things together.

Just when she was closing her satchel up, an audible gasp was heard from one of her students and when she looked up to the door where they were looking, Regina was strolling in through students who parted like the red sea.

Students did one of two things when the two professors were in the vicinity of each other: fled, or stayed to watch the _Clash of Professors_ that always happened, especially if Professor Mills had sought Professor Swan out; that never ended well.

“Professor Swan,” Regina greeted amicably when she stopped next to the desk. That was new; usually it was a demeaning _Miss Swan_. The students watched on; enraptured.

“Professor Mills,” Emma parroted, leaning one hip against the desk and crossing her arms. She wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to play this. “How are you?”

Regina raised an eyebrow. “How am I?” she asked, incredulous.

Emma shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’m fine. And yourself?”

“I’m great.”

“Good,” Regina said, and took Emma – and the rest of the students – by surprise by leaning in and gently pressing a kiss to Emma’s lips. “Lunch?” she asked.

Emma grinned. “You just kissed me.”

“I did.” But the faint blush on Regina’s cheeks told Emma just how much Regina was winging this – and hoping for the best.

“What if my students think less of me for being happy and in love?” Emma asked.

“Are you quite finished mocking me?” Regina asked

Emma’s grin grew. “For now,” she said, kissing Regina again.

“Lunch?” Regina asked again.

“ _Yes_. I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” Regina said with an eye roll, but smiled softly as she stepped back to let Emma out from behind her desk.

“How long do you have? Enough time to go to Granny’s?” Emma asked, referring to Ruby Lucas’ grandmother’s diner.

“Enough time to walk it, even. It’s beautiful out.”

“Great,” Emma said, reaching a hand out to Regina’s back to guide her out of the room. It was then she noticed the remaining students – still half of her class – watching, blinking, stupefied. “What are you all doing gawking?” she asked, pressing her hand firmer against Regina to reassure her, but the uncomfortable tensing of Regina’ back never came; she remained calm and soft and _smiling_. “Didn’t you hear? I have a lunch date with my wife and I’d like to not lock thirty students in my classroom. Let’s _go_.”

The students scrambled for their belongings and filed out, but not before Emma overheard Sabine and Tilly as they descended the steps.

“Fuck the King,” Sabine said, “The Queen has a Princess.”

“How did I not see that?” Tilly asked.

“ _Every_ one saw the sexual tension, but I was right: totally married. You owe me dinner.”

“Not that Italian place you like. I can’t afford that.”

“I won, you lost. I get to pick.”

Tilly grumbled.

“How about that pizza place by the water? That’s Italian,” Sabine suggested.

Tilly’s face lit up. “I love it there! Yeah, let’s do that.”

Sabine’s eyes softened and she smiled. “I love it, too.” 

Okay, Emma thought, maybe a bit like her and Regina: a little bit in love and a little bit oblivious.

“I thought you were starving,” Regina asked.

Emma smiled at her wife and couldn’t help but steal another kiss. “Love you,” she said.

Emma loved the blush that hadn’t yet left Regina’s face; the happiness that shone in her eyes. “I love you, too, dear.”

“Right. Food,” Emma said, leading them out of the room.  
  


* * *

  
The walk to Granny’s diner had been in relative silence, both women simply relishing _finally_ being able to be together out in the open; they walked close at first, until Emma got fed up of Regina brushing the back of her hand against hers and just entwined their fingers. Regina’s only reaction was to push farther into Emma’s side.

“So…” Emma trailed off, wiping the grease off her fingers, their stomachs finally sated and their talk of catching up at an end, unable to avoid the metaphorical elephant in the room.

“Yes, dear?”

“The kids totally watched you be all soft and gooey for me,” Emma beamed.

“I was not _soft and gooey_ ,” Regina scoffed, indignant. “I walked the appropriate line between a respectable superior and a caring wife.”

“You kissed me. Sure I felt a bit of tongue action there for a minute, too.”

“There was no tongue!” Regina argued, but she was laughing.

“ _The lady doth protest too much, methinks_ ,” Emma teased. “But seriously, I started the day totally okay with just not blatantly hiding it. It’s only just lunch and you’ve already almost had your way with me in my classroom. Care to enlighten your confused – but very okay with it! – wife?”

Regina shook her head. “I’m not quite certain today has fully sunk in yet. The faculty meeting threw me, but then I started my first class and we were discussing ‘ _We Walk Alone’_ and one student thought the poem was really about love. About how it’s not always happy and good and easy, but that it takes hard work and how it’s a constant choice and it made _sense_.

“And one thing led to another and we were talking about different kinds of love – romantic, friends, strangers, children – and I realised that, for once, I could talk about Henry. So, I did. And you – not explicitly, but I mentioned my wife. It came out so easily and I hadn’t even thought about it when I said it, it just… came out.”

Emma watched as Regina’s hands joined her words, gesticulating above the table as her words came faster, tripping over each other in their haste to be freed and her face lit up. This, she thought, was worth any official injunction they may get from the University; this happiness, this light, this _freedom_ her wife was feeling. She’d give the world for her to be this way all of the time.

“And then they asked questions and for once I didn’t _have_ to shut them down; I could answer them if I wanted. There weren’t many, but enough. And then the end of class came and the students were handing me their homework, and a quiet girl who always sits at the back told me she was happy for me. And,” Regina shook her head again, breathed out, “I don’t know. Something in me _clicked_ , like I realised what we had been missing out on for six years. Just being us. Being _happy_.”

Regina was flushed – with happiness and love and _everything_ , and Emma couldn’t resist – didn’t want to resist – leaning over the table and kissing her wife.

“You’re the talk of the campus, I hear,” Emma said and the light in Regina’s eyes almost instantly dimmed and Emma still, every time, hated every single person who had caused that reaction to happen. “Nothing bad,” Emma was quick to continue. “Just that your smile is beautiful.”

Regina tilted her head. “What?”

“They’re still scared shitless of you—”

“As they should be.”

“— _but,_ ” Emma carried on, “they’ve seen a side to you they’ve never seen. They think it’s beautiful. It turns out I don’t need to give anyone detention when I agree with the talk.”

“And who is ‘they’?” Regina asked, avoiding the compliment.

“Everyone,” Emma said simply.

“Oh.”  
  


* * *

  
And onwards the day went, and the rest of the week and then the next week too. The word passed about Professor Mills and Professor Swan and Regina was appalled by the sheer number of bets that had been made – by both other professors and faculty in seemingly all other departments of the University and by the students alike. Emma found it hilarious.

There was no official word from the University, something the two women were still on edge about, almost as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it was regarding a certain incident that they found out just where the University stood.

Regina had already started her class when one particular student felt it was appropriate to turn up still drunk from the night before and spewing homophobic comments the moment he staggered in.

Regina kept her head and remained professional, sending him out of her classroom and home to sleep it off, but it didn’t work. Instead, Gideon took to the corridor, yelling at the top of his lungs, which, ultimately, drew the attention of other professors. Classroom doors opened and Regina garnered an unwanted audience whilst she tried to quieten him.

It was when Emma shot out of her classroom and made a bee-line for the boy that it all got worse; Regina thought Emma might actually finally punch a student, but instead she clenched her fists and tried to help, but his slurs were aimed viciously at the two professors simultaneously and they were helpless to stop it.

And then a blur shot from behind Emma and it was over far quicker than it had begun.

Sabine cradled her first whilst Gideon howled out in pain and blood gushed from his nose.

“You broke my nose!” he cried.

“Be lucky it was just that appendage,” Sabine sneered.

“But they’re—”

“One more word,” she threatened, raising her fist again. “I _dare_ you.”

A few more students approached, Roderick and Peter from Emma’s class among them, and hauled Gideon off – not to the nurse, Regina and Emma later found out, but straight to the Dean’s office.

There wasn’t much Regina nor Emma could do after that. Ruby offered to cover one of their classes and Killian – to their surprise – offered to cover the other, but Regina Mills was nothing if not stubborn and seemingly unshakeable, adamant she was fine and they were all to go back to their teachings and learnings alike.

(She had subtly shot a look at Emma, but Emma knew her wife and just nodded in agreement.)

“Gideon’s been expelled,” Sabine regaled giddily on her return from the nurse, just before the lesson finished. “He’s not even going up in front of the board. Gold made one phone call and the decision was made on the spot,” she laughed and then winced when Tilly poked her wrapped hand too hard, but tangled their fingers together anyway.

Emma just hoped that reflected the University’s view on her and Regina, not just their view on drunken antics and public homophobia.

After class was finished, Emma met Regina in her office, locking the door behind her because Emma knew what would happen and was prepared for when her wife broke down into tears the moment Emma’s arms were around her. There wasn’t much to say; they had both been there, so they took comfort in one another.  
  


* * *

  
An hour later and they were eating lunch – Regina’s next class and Emma’s office hours not for another half an hour – when there was a knock on the door.

Regina was quick to leave her food on the coffee table and go to unlock the door. She opened it to find the Dean on the other side and gestured him into the room. If he was surprised to see Emma sitting on the small sofa, he didn’t show it.

“Professor Swan,” he nodded in greeting at Emma.

“Dean Gold,” she replied, quickly swallowing her mouthful and surreptitiously wiping the crumbs from her lap.

“What can I do for you?” Regina asked, voice steady, but her fingers fiddled with her wedding ring.

“I won’t keep you long,” Dean Gold said, gesturing to their half-eaten lunch, “and I didn’t think either of you would appreciate being called to my office.” He leant a little more heavily on his cane; most likely feeling the effects from having to climb five flights of stairs. Whatever people said about the Dean – just like with Regina – he was a good man at heart. “I would like to formally apologise on behalf of the University for the incident the happened earlier today.” His grip tightened on the head of his cane. “Rest assured that it has been dealt with. That boy is no longer welcome at this University and is banned from the premises.”

“Thank you, Gold,” Regina said. Emma couldn’t find her voice and just nodded in agreement.

“Disrespect will not be tolerated. You know where I am if need be.” He turned. “No need to walk me out,” he said to Regina and limped to the door. “It’s nice to finally have you settled in here, Professors,” Dean Gold said with an almost-smile and then left.

“He gives me whiplash,” Emma said after a moment.

“He gives everyone whiplash,” Regina laughed as she reclaimed her seat next to Emma. “I suppose that’s the other shoe we were waiting for.”

“I’m a little disappointed, to be honest.”

“Disappointed?”

Emma shrugged. “All this fuss for nothing. Gideon aside, there’s been… well, nothing. No drama, no struggle, absolutely no fucks given. Not even a parade!”

“A parade?” Regina asked, amused.

“A parade, Regina. It’s a missed opportunity.”

“Well, maybe you don’t get a parade,” Regina said, “but you get me instead. Is that okay?”

“All this fuss.” Emma shook her head. “I could have had you six years ago.”

“You had me six years ago,” Regina said, kissing Emma’s lips. “And you have me now,” another kiss, a little longer, a little deeper. “And you have me forever.” A final kiss that lasted a lot longer and went a lot deeper that Regina was almost late for the first time in her life.  
  


* * *

  
On the following Monday, Regina left early to attend an especially early appointment for a student whose work schedule never matched with the professor’s office hours and Emma dropped Henry to _Early Birds_ club and only just made it to the faculty meeting on time.

Emma noticed the moment she barged into the room how radiant her wife was looking, but there was no time to comment on it. Regina was twitchy the entire meeting, for once not fully concentrating on the page of notes – only three-quarters full, Emma noted – and constantly checking the clock on the wall. Almost the second the second hand hit the nine, Regina was ending the meeting and was hurrying Emma to get up and go with her _faster_.

“Where are we going?” Emma asked, but Regina didn’t say anything. Had it not been for the smile threatening to break her face in two, Emma might have been concerned, but Regina was rushing because she was _excited_ ; Emma could see the eagerness in her quick steps.

Regina led Emma to the sixth floor and just before Emma’s own office, she gave her a shove towards the door.

“ _What_?” Emma asked, impatient.

“Just— _look_.”

So, Emma did. And there, greeting her at her closed office door, was a shiny, new placard.

_Professor Swan-Mills_

Ridiculously to Emma, she felt tears spring up. She turned to Regina but was hushed when she went to talk, only led by her hand farther down the corridor. They stopped in front of Regina’s own office.

_Head of English_

And then underneath it:

_Professor Swan-Mills_

Tears burst from Emma. “What did you _do_?” she asked, throwing her arms around her wife.

“I didn’t do anything,” Regina replied, pulling Emma in tighter. “I saw it this morning when I got in.”

Emma pulled away and saw matching tears welling up in Regina’s eyes, but knew Regina wouldn’t let them fall until she was in the safe confines of her office. Emma brushed away a stray tear that rolled down her cheek.

“We did it,” she whispered.

“We did,” Regina replied, pressing her smile against Emma’s.

“Oi, lovebirds!” a voice echoed down the corridor. They broke apart slowly at the familiar voice that stopped shouting but got louder as it approached. “I hate to break up the happy homo-vibes and all that,” Ruby said, finally near them, “but you have a class in five minutes,” she said to Emma, “and I need you to sign these before my meeting with the Dean,” she said to Regina, brandishing a stack of files.

“Did you know?” Emma asked Ruby.

“About…?”

“ _This_ ,” Emma said, jabbing a finger at the placard.

“Need I remind you who was your bridesmaid? I knew you double-barrelled your names, babe,” Ruby replied.

“About the change of our official titles, Ruby,” Regina said.

“Oh, no. But that’s great. I’m so happy for you,” Ruby smiled. “Now, Em, I hate to be the kind of best friend who does this, but please fuck off so I can have some alone time with your wife.”

Emma leaned in and kissed Regina’s lips, humming against the soft pressure Regina applied. “I’ll be in my office later so just come by when you’re done.”

“Okay,” Regina replied, kissing Emma once more. “I imagine it’ll be around three.”

“Perfect,” Emma said. “Be gentle with her,” she said to Ruby, slapping her on the bum as she passed her.

“I know how she likes it, don’t I, _Professor_?” Ruby said lecherously and Emma didn’t have to look back to know that Ruby’s cackle was cut off abruptly by the pain that resulted from the slap of files hitting her across the head.

Emma smiled to herself.

Life was good.

Life was _so_ good.

**Author's Note:**

> Potentially, I might make this part of a collection of inserts from their lives. Let me know if anyone would be interested in that or has any ideas or things you'd specifically like to see.
> 
> Thank you kindly for reading.


End file.
